Why this matters
When a first-time guest opens your church homepage, they are looking for one thing: when do you meet, and where. If your service times sit below the fold, buried under a hero image or a welcome video, the guest has to scroll and hunt for the one fact that decides their Sunday. Put the day, the time, and the address in the top section, in plain text, and most of that friction disappears.
Skipping this check is what makes a redesign feel disappointing. A church spends weeks on new photography and a fresh layout, launches it, and the times are still three scrolls down on a phone. The look changed. The one question a guest came to answer is still hard to find.
At a glance
- Service times belong in the first screen a guest sees, in plain text, on a phone.
- Across the church homepages we review, times most often hide inside an image, a slider, or a PDF that a phone won't render.
- Test it on your own phone, not your desktop. The fold is much shorter on mobile.
- A header tweak fixes this in an afternoon. If the times are trapped in a page builder you can't edit, that's a different problem.
The framework
Run this diagnosis in about 30 minutes. You need your phone and a quiet minute.
1) The phone test (5 minutes)
Open your homepage on your phone, not your laptop. Do not scroll. Can you read the day and time of your main service in plain text? If you have to scroll even once, or the time is inside a photo, it fails. The phone screen is where most first-time guests land.
2) Plain text, not an image (5 minutes)
Check whether your service time is real text or baked into a graphic. Tap and try to select the words. If nothing highlights, it's an image. Images don't show up in search results, screen readers skip them, and a slow connection may not load them before the guest leaves.
3) The slider trap (5 minutes)
If your times live inside a rotating banner or slideshow, watch it for ten seconds. Does the times slide auto-advance before someone could finish reading? Rotating banners hide the most important fact behind timing you don't control. A static header always wins here.
4) Address and "what to expect" nearby (5 minutes)
Times answer half the question. The other half is where and what it's like. Confirm the street address (or "online only") sits near the times, and that a short "planning your visit" link is one tap away. A guest deciding on Saturday night wants both in one glance.
5) The PDF and the map pin (5 minutes)
Some churches link times inside a downloadable bulletin or a map embed. A guest will not download a PDF to learn when you meet, and a map pin without text is easy to miss. Pull the times out into the header as words.
Scoring worksheet
- Times visible on phone without scrolling: 0 to 2
- Times are selectable text, not an image: 0 to 1
- Times are static, not in a rotating slider: 0 to 1
- Address or "online" sits near the times: 0 to 1
A score of 5 means a guest gets their answer in the first glance. Anything under 4 means fix the header before you spend on a redesign.
This week action plan
- Day 1: Run the phone test and score the five items above.
- Day 2: Rewrite the top section so the day, time, and address are plain text.
- Day 3: Pull times out of any slider, image, or PDF.
- Day 4: Add a one-tap "planning your visit" link near the times.
- Day 5: Ask someone who has never seen the site to find your service time on their phone. Time them.
Common mistakes
- Testing on a desktop, where the fold is twice as tall as a phone.
- Leaving the times inside a hero image so they never appear in search.
- Trusting a rotating banner to show the times before the guest scrolls past.
Frequently asked questions
What are the best church website builders for showing service times clearly?
The best church website builders let you edit the top section as plain text without touching code. What matters more than the brand is whether the volunteer who maintains the site can put the day, time, and address in the header and have it read cleanly on a phone. If your current tool traps that in an image or slider you can't edit, that's the real limit.
Where should service times go on a church website?
In the first screen a guest sees on their phone, as plain selectable text, with the address right beside them. Keep the wording simple: the day, the start time, and whether there's an online option. Save the fuller "what to expect" details for a linked visit page one tap away.
Do service times need to be text and not part of the design image?
Yes. Text shows up in search results, works with screen readers, and loads even on a slow connection. When times are baked into a graphic, a guest on a weak signal may see a blank space where the most important fact should be. Keep the design and put the words on top of it as real text.
Where this connects in our work
- A homepage review for a five-minute look at whether your service times land in the first glance.
- Examples for how other church homepages put times front and center.
- Insights for more homepage checkups you can run yourself.
Next step
Run the phone test today and score your header. If the times fail, a homepage review will show you exactly where they're hiding and what to change first.